


Occupational Hazard

by Last_Haven



Series: Love Is [4]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-18
Updated: 2012-07-18
Packaged: 2017-11-10 05:22:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/462640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Last_Haven/pseuds/Last_Haven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between his husband and his work, Arthur is never going to get his own job done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Occupational Hazard

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the usxuk community on livejournal for Sweethearts Week; prompt was 'Taking Care of Business'.

Sitting down at his desk, Arthur settled into his chair that squeaked and moaned with the slightest shift of movement. Once he was properly situated, he turned to his typewriter; while Alfred jumped at the chase to tease him about being old fashioned, typewriters always held more allure to him. He felt more professional typing on one than he did at a computer, with the added benefit that he couldn’t just go back and delete something, forcing him to keep going. After a quick inspection of the typewriter itself—keys moving smoothly still, no jams, the ribbon brand new, and a clean sheet of paper already fed into it—he began his final preparations. Grabbing his left index finger first, he carefully adjusted his hold and then pressed back until the knuckle cracked. He continued on to each finger and then his other hand before he laced his fingers together and gave one final crack.

“That,” Alfred announced as he paused at the bedroom door, “was disgusting.”

Arthur scowled at the interruption. “Don’t you have some birds to feed?”

Alfred grinned and left. Shaking his head, Arthur returned his attention to his typewriter. Gently, he eased his fingertips onto the keys, adjusting them while he tried to think what to write first. Since this would be a new chapter, he typed in the chapter number, something he would change on the next draft.

Where to begin though? The last chapter hadn’t ended on a cliffhanger, otherwise he would already have something to work with off the bat. Instead, he was starting fresh and while he had an idea in mind for the end of the chapter, deciding what his characters would do at the beginning left him stumped. Should they immediately continue on their journey, or would they prefer to wait to gather supplies before leaving?

With a shrug, he settled on having his main character rallying the other members of their party to set off. Just as his fingers graced the keys once more, a cacophony of loud, sharp shrieking made Arthur jump in his chair. Pressing a hand to his chest, he whipped around in his chair to gaze at the open door. “What did you do in there; try to murder one of them?”

“No! The barn owlets just fighting over food, s’all,” Alfred called back.

Shaking his head, Arthur got up from his chair and wandered over to the door. Outside in the kitchen, Alfred stood over a tall crate, dangling a mess of some hacked up animal from the beak of the barn owl puppet he used to feed the birds. It would do none of them any good if the owlets imprinted on Alfred—they were only at the sanctuary until they could hunt and survive on their own, after all. Arthur just hoped Alfred wouldn’t attach himself too much to the birds. He was already half in love with the bald eagle that had been brought in to recuperate from its brush with some electrical wires, and Arthur didn’t want to see him get weepy over the owls as well.

“Hello, love.”

Arthur blinked and looked to the side; as he thought, Alfred had left the door to the porch wide open again. In the doorframe, a large raven cocked his head to the side. “Hello, love,” it repeated in a downright uncanny mimicry of Arthur’s own voice. The raven, a charming fellow he named Bran, was a permanent resident of the sanctuary since his wing had been amputated after a severe break. It had picked up Arthur’s own greeting to Alfred and now repeated it whenever he spotted Arthur. “Hello, love.”

Arthur had to smile as he left the room to go crouch next to the bird. “Hello yourself. Breakfast?”

Bran instantly recognized that word as well. “Yummy!” he croaked—somehow, Alfred taught him to respond to words like “breakfast”, “snack”, and “you sexy thing” with “yummy”. The raven shambled unsteadily inside and waited for Arthur to offer his arm before hopping up. Slowly, so he wouldn’t dump the bird, Arthur walked to the fridge to pull out his breakfast.

Taking the food out, Arthur set Bran on the counter so he could open the containers. The raven didn’t want to make it easy for him; the moment he sat Bran down, the bird began to squawk and pick at his sleeves, begging him to hurry up. Arthur studiously ignored Alfred’s muttered “and you worry I’ll get attached” and focused on Bran until the raven was satisfied. Once finished, he offered the bird his arm again to perch on and took him back outside before shutting the door on Bran’s offended squawking.

Inside, Alfred was still feeding the owlets, who had thankfully quieted down. Arthur paused for a moment over the box to peer in; inside, five owlets gave him steady, unblinking stares as they bobbed about, nearly in unison. Arthur had never thought of owls being strange or unnerving before he married Alfred and joined him at the sanctuary up in the mountains, but damn if the almost hypnotic movements didn’t set his teeth on edge faster than Alfred could cringe at a horror movie.

“How are they doing?” he asked as Alfred picked out some more shredded animal to feed them.

“Really well!” Alfred grinned as he lowered his hand into the box. Arthur leaned away in distaste as the birds began to squabble again over the food. “Given a couple more weeks, they’ll be ready to go.”

Humming his acknowledgement, Arthur turned and headed back to their room. “I’ll leave you to them—I need to get twenty pages done by Friday, so try to keep it down, will you?”

“Well, I’ll try, but no promises.”

Arthur grunted and slipped into the room, shutting the door and making a beeline for his desk. As he swung into his seat, he stretched his fingers once more before placing them on the keys.

And then he stared at the paper blankly. What was it he wanted to write again?

He glared down at the typewriter for several minutes, trying to find the plot thread he started once more, but even when he remembered the gist of it, he couldn’t think of how to word any of it.

With a groan, he set his head down on the desk. Outside the room, he heard a shout from Alfred followed by a screeching racket of the owlets. _Sounds like he got pecked again._

Giving his typewriter one last glare of disgust, he abandoned his desk to go bandage his husband up again.


End file.
